Global Urban Humanities/Future Histories Lab

Instructors: Anna Livia Brand, Bryan Wagner

Term: Spring 2019

Course #: Landscape Architecture 154 / American Studies 102

Why Read This Case Study?

New Orleans: Historical Memory and Urban Design, an interdisciplinary research studio, focused on the ways human history and urban design interact over time. Faculty members Anna Livia Brand (Landscape Architecture) and Bryan Wagner (English) led this undergraduate course, which posed fundamental questions: how are cities designed, and how are such designs reshaped over time – benefiting some residents and neighborhoods while imposing lasting harm on others? How can these multilayered histories be peeled back, allowing the roots of violence and injustice to be revealed and contested? And how might place-based resistance strategies reclaim the past and portend the future?

This course took students from a variety of academic majors on a journey through the history of New Orleans’ Black communities. They tracked the progressive marginalization, displacement, and gentrification of these communities, and traveled to the city to explore and learn from local residents and organizations firsthand. Brand and Wagner challenged students to harness their imaginations and creativity to reimagine place-based strategies of resistance and design a map to guide residents and visitors to important cultural events. The studio partnered with the New Orleans Paper Monuments project to create public poster art about sites of deep meaning to the community, featuring individuals, social movements, and historical events that shaped the city’s social geography and landscape. Then, students developed a digital interactive map of Claiborne Avenue, a main throughway through the city’s Black community, locating important sites of resistance and cultural regeneration – historical places, public art, cultural events, and street performances.

In this case study, readers are introduced to the semester-long studio’s structure and pedagogical objectives, can view a rich sample of student creative work, and gain insight into the student experience via a set of reflective essays.